


You Hit Me Once (kiss with a fist)

by aohatsu



Category: Doom (2005)
Genre: Angst, Childhood, F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samantha's memories from before John left to join the marines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Hit Me Once (kiss with a fist)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by **silverraven**. :D

Sam tugs the small black dress over her head, and then smoothes out the wrinkles on her waist and shoulders. Her hair is short enough that it doesn't get caught under the material, but she lifts her hands to the back of her neck and runs her fingers through it anyway, remembering how her mother always would. 

She sits down on the floor and pulls on her pink sneakers, because they're the only shoes she has, and will have to do, despite them not being black. She ties her laces, the rabbit going through his rabbit hole, and looks up at the bed that's a few feet away from her, harboring her brother. John's button-down shirt is ruffled and wrinkled. Sam can see two of the buttons straining to come loose, because John turned over in his sleep, and his clothes tried to stay put. She frowns, puts a hand on her knee and pushes herself up off the floor, thinking about the promise she made to Abigail. She and John had told the adults they could get ready themselves, and would be at the Ark at exactly nine-hundred hours to transport back to Earth for the funeral.

_The funeral._ Thinking about it makes her chest ache. She doesn't want to go back to Earth. She doesn't want to go to a funeral. She doesn't want her Mom and her Dad to both be dead, still buried beneath mountains of rock. 

John breathes really softly when he's sleeping, and Sam almost wants to climb up next to him and curl up to go to sleep herself. It's better than the alternative, she thinks. But she's nine-years-old, and two minutes older than John, and she has responsibility. Their parents are dead, whether she wants them to be or not.

She puts her hands on John's shoulder, and says, "John, wake up."

 

 

They're special, the scientists say. James and Sarah Grimm were important to everyone at Olduvai, the researchers say. They're assets, the government officials say.

Whatever the reason, Sam and John are given a small room, one for two people instead of four, and allowed to stay on Olduvai, provided they continue studying in scientific areas of interest. Chemistry, Biology, Pre-Calculus; they're starting all three when they turn ten, because their parents have been teaching them everything about genetics since they were in the womb together. Sam loves it; John loves Sam. They're happy to study if they can stay on Olduvai together; the alternative is Earth, where they'd get passed through foster care, probably split apart. Olduvai is their home. They can't leave.

 

 

Sam isn't asleep when John finally throws off his blankets and gets up. He's been tossing and turning relentlessly all night, but it isn't surprising. He hasn't slept well in four days, he tells her it's because when he closes his eyes, he keeps seeing their parents fall. He'd been there when it had happened. She hadn’t, and she doesn't have nightmares, if you ignore the dreams when John disappears and leaves her all alone. But in those at least, she doesn't wake up screaming. Her brother hasn’t had more than an hour of sleep at a time for the past few days, and she doesn't know what to do, or how to help.

For now, they're in Abigail's living quarters—because the doctor is worried about them being on their own so soon after the deaths of their parents. They're lying in sleeping bags that Abigail swore were comfortable but aren't. It's like sleeping on the floor. 

John comes back from the bathroom ten minutes later, and Sam can see even through the dark that he's tired. Her whisper, when she lets it out, seems to stretch across the room—they aren't supposed to talk after lights out. "Come over here?"

It's more of a question than a suggestion, but her twin nods and pulls his sleeping bag over. They double stack them, for more comfort, and zip into Sam's together, barely fitting. It's warm, and comfortable, and Sam sleeps easily for the first time in four days.

 

 

They turn thirteen in a month. They're actually working for the UAC now; just little things that interns would do, if the Government would allow the UAC to have them. They don't, and so they use the children for things like delivering paper results and meeting reschedules. Sam enjoys it, because it makes her feel like she's on the first level to her mother, and who her mother had been before she died. 

John hates it.

Sam's never thought about it before; about it being a problem. Then marines come to the UAC, and John can't take his eyes off of them, their uniforms, their guns. Abigail smiles and laughs, pulls Sam aside while a man bends at his knees, grins and ruffles John's hair. "Looks like your brother finally has something as interesting for him as genetics is for you. Let's give him a minute, okay?" 

Sam tries; but she can't stop watching the man with the gun, holding it up and letting John get a feel for it, as if he's trying to teach John how to use it. She starts to cry, and Abigail looks surprised, before softly touching her hair and telling her to quiet down, but Sam can't stop until John pulls her against him, so that she can rest her head at his neck. Nobody understands why she's crying, not even John.

She stops after they go back to their room; after John stops looking at the guns and instead holds Sam while she falls asleep on her bed, and Sam knows, _she knows_ , that he needs to be sure that she’s alright more than he needs to look at a gun. She stops crying because she realizes she has no reason to cry at all; because she realizes that John isn’t going to leave her all alone. 

 

The movie is something about zombies, _a classic_ John told her, but he's not really paying attention either. They're laughing, and Sam is happy. They turned fifteen two weeks ago, and Sam thinks maybe it's a turning point. They've never been unhappy, but there's something bubbling in her abdomen, and she thinks she knows what it is because it's terrifying. She thinks that John can feel it too. 

She's sitting half on his lap, her legs spread out over the edge of the chair they're co-habitating. They’re only ones in recreation room, maybe because it's late and the only people awake are too busy working to bother with watching a movie.

John said something about one of the guys in the movie—about him moving too slowly and using his gun like a child would use a stick and it's just funny enough that Sam laughs and tilts her head back. John grins and looks at her face, so that when she stops and responds in turn, they're staring at each other, faces close, his eyes looking into hers, and Sam doesn't know what's going to happen, but she wants it to like fire wants to burn, suddenly, or maybe not even suddenly. She holds her breath when John tilts his head closer.

Abigail walks in through the door, and John looks up at the woman quickly. Sam's heart drops from where it has been lodged in her throat, and she briefly wonders why Abigail is awake this late before she realizes that Abigail's mouth is open, and yelling. At _John_.

She’s grabbing John's arm and pulling him off the chair, so hard that John can’t possibly pull back. Sam almost falls but lands on the heels of her feet and yells at Abigail back, startling the woman into looking at her instead, loosening her grip on John—which he doesn't take advantage of, instead staring at the ground like it's the one who ripped him from his chair. Abigail starts to yell at John, but Sam is the one who feels like it’s a slap in her face: “She’s your _sister_ , John!”

"Nothing happened! We were just watching a movie! Let him go!" Sam yells, her heart beating quick, quick, quick, because she’s scared now, and it’s true, nothing had happened, but there was something that may have, maybe, and Sam was the one who wanted it to.

Abigail complies after a moment, her gaze hard but unsure. John looks back up and grumbles about Abigail ruining the movie before she throws them out of the room, mentioning something about them being old enough for separate quarters now, if they want them. John says it isn't necessary, and Sam says goodnight. 

Abigail watches them walk down the hall, and John doesn't lean into Sam at all, and that speaks more than anything. 

John gets in his own bed that night. It isn't out of the ordinary, exactly, but Sam feels like it's meant more for distance than the fact that it's normal. She doesn't like it. She pulls on her pajama shorts and a t-shirt, and lifts John's blanket to climb in with him. 

She's never actually gotten in with John before. It's always John who slips into Sam's bed, whether it's when they first go to sleep, or in the middle of the night, after a nightmare. But John doesn't protest, and Sam curls into him until he puts a hand around her, his fingers grazing against her back through the fabric of her t-shirt. 

 

 

There's a surprising amount of blood on the ground. Sam notices it first, before her eyes search out the two boys whose faces are covered in the same color. The adults are arguing, and one of them is yelling at the boys. John looks angry, his lip curled in a snarl, ready to yell back. Bobby, the other boy, looks like he's going to be sick.

Sixteen-year-old boys’ argue with their fists, Abigail says, somewhere to Sam's left. John doesn't have a father to teach him not to, she says. They're lucky he hasn't done worse. Sam doesn't think he could have done worse if he'd tried, because Bobby—even Sam can see he's twice as badly hurt as John. 

The adults let her through, finally, and she grabs John's hand, but he flinches and pulls away, looks to the ground. Throughout the three lectures that John stands for, he never apologizes. And he never looks at Sam.

It's an hour since Sam was told about the fight and an hour since she ran to find John when she and her brother are allowed to go back to their room. John never explained why he started to hit Bobby, and beyond saying that John started it, Bobby hadn't explained either. Sam asks now, out of the earshot of the adults. "What happened, really?"

John shrugs, "Nothing. He pissed me off."

"John, you can't hit people just because they piss you off." She sits on her bed, looking up at him where he's going through his drawers, his clothes thrown in them, rather than properly folded. 

"Well, too bad, Sam, I'll hit whoever I feel like fucking hitting."

Sam doesn't answer, but stares at John's back where it moves, stiff and angry as he slams the drawer shut. He turns around, says, "Leave for a minute! I'm gonna' change! There's blood all over my damn shirt."

Sam gets up and leaves the room as if on auto-pilot, her eyes wide still, because John is _angry_ , so angry, and he's angry _at her_. She hasn't done anything to make him so mad, she's sure, and it doesn't make any sense. John is angry for no reason, and—even if he has a reason to be angry, he shouldn't be angry at _Sam_. She clinches her fist and turns around, opens the door and walks back in, John scowling at her as he finishes pulling on a new shirt, gray with black text that says _bring it_ in all capital letters, and Sam just shakes her head. "Why the hell are you mad at me!?"

John groans, turns around and grabs a book off his desk. 

"John!" Sam yells, walking quickly towards him, grabbing his arm at the elbow. He jerks it away from her, sending her a glare. "Jesus, Sam, it's none of your fucking business!"

"I didn't do anything to you! You've never been so mean before. What did Bobby say? Or did I do something this morning and not realize it? Or are you just PMSing like a girl?" She's angry too now, because John is, but she isn't expecting him to turn around and push her hard enough that the back of her legs hit his bed, making her fall down on it. He looks surprised for a minute, and Sam knows he wasn't expecting to push her either. She doesn't care though, and she stands up, ready to yell at him again, but he starts talking before she can.

"Bobby likes you." It's rushed, and John looks uncomfortable with the way he says it, and the way it sounds, and the way he's standing while he says it. "He said he wanted to—anyway, I told him to shut the fuck up, and he started talking about how just because—he said—it just pissed me off, alright? So I hit him, and he hit back, and it just—he fucking deserved it, okay, Sam?"

Something tugs at Sam's chest, but she's still mad, and she glares up at her brother. "So, what, you were just defending my honor then? Him saying things about me doesn't give you the right to throw punches!”

“It’s none of your business! Fuck, Sam!”

“Yes it is! I don't need your damn protection, John!"

"I know that! That's not why I—! It was—" John slams his hand into the back of the bed frame, a loud noise slamming across the room when it made contact. 

" _What_ , John?"

John kisses Sam then, fast and hard and just pushing, hard, dry lips against hers, but it takes everything she has out of her, and the fight just ends. John pulls away, turns and curses, before storming out of their room by himself. Sam can hear the last thing he says before the door seals shut—"This place is fucking hell anyway."

 

  
Sam's hands are open, limp by her hips where they hang, and she can't fist them together, tight and angry and hurt and betrayed. John is talking to the same adult who had lectured him on his fight the day before, but the man is smiling now, proud or grateful or both, Sam doesn't know, can't bring herself to really try and find out.

The Ark is fifteen feet away. Sam remembers how it pulls at your stomach and makes you spill anything you may or may not have eaten in the past twenty-four hours—forces you to drop to the floor and just heave. She hates the Ark, because it takes you back to Earth; away from home; away from Mom and Dad and John and science. 

Now John is leaving, and is Olduvai even going to be home without John?

He told her this morning that he sighed up for Marine Training at one of the recruiting facilities on Earth. Sam had cried, and John had packed. He hadn't held her, but he didn't stop her from hugging him, crushing against him and begging, crying, just stay, _just stay_. He pulled away, grabbed his heavy black bag and walked down to the Ark room. Sam almost hadn't followed.

The Ark begins to countdown, the feminine voice speaking strongly, so that everyone can hear it.

John steps forward, and Sam watches him refuse to turn around—refuse to say good-bye.


End file.
